Ekstedt

The focus here is on familiar ingredients that have been through purgatory in a variety of ways – flames, embers, smoke, blast furnace heat – and emerged as flavour-distorted hybrids. The best example of this are the virginally fresh oysters given a searing kiss of death by beef fat melted in a small ladle over an open fire; it’s a wonderfully decadent process to watch. Cooking at Ekstedt is ‘analogue’, done entirely without electricity and with a focus on fire techniques and firewood – old-school pyronomics at the highest level. Although there are a number of fireplaces and ovens being used in parallel – the latest addition is an iron and glass box for low-temperature cooking – the heart of the house is the central so-called fire pit. The heat from it spreads throughout the restaurant, as do quite a number of smoke molecules (though the air quality has gradually improved). To avoid competition with flames and embers, lighting is kept to a minimum, and the fact is that this is about as close as you get to blind eating in Sweden. Instagram-friendly it is not. The opening flatbread taco with reindeer heart, cooked at the table and cubed, is a fine declaration of intent – and sets a high standard for drama with its small cast iron bowl heated to 220 degrees in a wood-fired oven and placed on the table with an express warning to keep your fingers off. Various types of birch firewood are sourced with the same care as the ingredients and drinks, and a birch charcoal cream with an elegantly smoky acidity takes centre stage in a dish of vendace roe, leek and roe deer – whose dried meat is shredded on top to make looks like a pink heap of parmesan. It’s pretty as a picture and easy to love, especially as the dish is seconded by a dusky sourdough bread of Fylgia wheat and Råberga rye, baked with the house’s eight-year-old starter of wheat and apple. The hay-flamed steak of Swedish milch cow is bright red and juicy inside its blackened coat, strikingly contrasted with dazzlingly white, rice-paper thin kohlrabi. A texture contrast is provided by four small squares of tender tongue and duck-liver creamy blood pudding, all of it held together by a nicely restrained smokiness. A wood-fired almond cake with grilled apple caramel ice cream is both a worthy and a wowing finale, assisted by a modern, not overly sweet tokay.

Published december 2019